The present invention relates to a wiping device for removing excess ink and, more particularly, to a wiping device suitably usable in an intaglio printing press.
Generally, in an intaglio printing press, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-127349 (literature 1), an inking device transfers ink to the surface of an intaglio plate attached to the outer surface of an intaglio cylinder, and a wiping device removes, out of the transferred ink, excess ink that is adhered to parts other than the image portions. Then, the ink remaining on the image portions of the intaglio plate surface is transferred to a sheet that passes between the intaglio cylinder and an impression cylinder, thereby performing printing.
The conventional wiping device includes a wiping roller that rotates in contact with the intaglio plate surface on the intaglio cylinder so as to wipe excess ink on the intaglio plate surface, a wiping roller cleaning member such as a brush or blade for cleaning the ink adhered to the wiping roller, and a liquid tank capable of storing a wiping liquid.
When cleaning the wiping roller, the above-described wiping device uses a wiping liquid together with the wiping roller cleaning member. The wiping roller is cleaned by the ink solvency of the wiping liquid and the wiping action or scraping action of the wiping roller cleaning member.
In the intaglio printing press, intaglio ink having properties different from those of ink for an offset printing press is used. In addition, the intaglio plate surface wiping effect by the wiping roller needs to be maintained. It is therefore necessary to properly remove the intaglio ink on the wiping roller. For this purpose, caustic soda that is a strong alkali is used as the wiping liquid, as described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 10-337855 (literature 2).
Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-104994 (literature 3) proposes a wiping liquid processing method and apparatus for filtering a wiping liquid used so as to newly generate a wiping liquid having predetermined properties.
However, the wiping liquid processing method of literature 3 requires a predetermined number of processing steps until a wiping liquid having specific properties is regenerated, and needs a dedicated apparatus to reuse the wiping liquid. It is therefore impossible to easily and efficiently perform intaglio cylinder cleaning processing by the wiping roller at low cost.